5 Productivity Hacks To Help You Live A Better Life

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” — Mae West.

Every new day presents a new set of goals to achieve, a new set of hurdles to overcome, and looking forward to being better than yesterday. Usually, we get caught up. At one point, we’re riding a productivity high, and suddenly, we’re deadened by something that zaps our spirit. We hit one of life’s stumbling blocks, or we simply indulge in one of our preferred hedonistic pleasures to dull the pain and boredom of life. However, these drops in productivity lead to a decreased quality of life. In turn, not only do our finances suffer, but so do our careers, health, and relationships as well.

So, what are we supposed to do?

There exists multiple known methods for working around our inabilities to get and stay productive.

1. Make To-do Lists: To-do lists can greatly improve your focus and in long-run productivity. Keep a notepad nearby and use the traditional method of writing out short lists for tasks that you’re trying to accomplish.

2. Manage Time Effectively: Throughout our day, we tend to get repeatedly interrupted. Everything from family, to finances, to careers, and health can break our momentum. But, to push past this, and be highly productive, we have to manage our time effectively. Managing time effectively is probably one of the most important productivity hacks that you can employ. This has much to do with employing the quadrant time-management system. Every day, in the morning, you have to detail out the activities that you’ll assert your initial efforts towards, which should be your long-term goals. You also have to avoid interruptions and make sure that you timely deal with things before they turn into a cross that can’t be ignored.

3. Say ‘No’: More often than not, we feel obliged or pressured into accepting every challenge or favor being asked of us. While being helpful and creative is a good thing, it is critical to understand your priorities lest you may lag behind in your own goals. When you’re crystal clear about your priorities, you can painlessly arrange them in the right order and discard the activities and commitments that do not support the ones at the top of your list.

4. Turn off the Internet: Choose one block of time in the day and turn off the Internet. This is especially important if you find yourself distracted by social media, news, and video sites. Turning off the Internet is an excellent method for hacking productivity, because all of those distractions and information overload help to sidetrack us with ease.

6. Keep the End in Mind: Sometimes in order to get through dry or uninteresting work, it is better to focus on the light at the end of the tunnel. According to research, certain emotions can help one focus better on the work at hand and increase chances of completion.

Do you have any productivity hacks you play by or have learned from your mentor? Let us know in the comments below.